Alex Felez Buchholz is a prominent fashion and portrait
photographer based out of Delhi, India. Alex is a co-founder of LF Photo Agency
which operates in Spain and India. We recently had the opportunity to interview
Alex on the art and process of photography.
IM: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got
into photography?
Alex: I was born in Mexico half a century ago, but lived my
entire life in Barcelona.I could
consider myself as a real cosmopolitan man with a mix of Mexican, Spanishand
German. My passion for photography was born over 30 years ago. But my first
steps were purely experimental, playing around with perspectives on try and
error basis.
Probably my German part was responsible at that point to have the desire to understand
what I was doing and why thing happened the way they did. So I learned
everything by reading photography literature, analyzing pictures and trying to
emulate them. Since that beginning I dedicated mainly my amateur photographic
activity to nature, landscape and wildlife, this last one already from a more portrait
perspective. IM: You started off as a wildlife photographer how was
your transition into fashion photography? Alex: It was years later
after meeting Pere Larrègula, a great teacher, better photographer and a
friend, that I discovered the “human” portrait and fashion photography, through
the real beauty of light-shaping and its great creativepossibilities.
Since that moment I wanted to get deeper and deeper into the portraits trying
to work as much as possible with artists, actors and dancer. This fascinationfor body
language and expression we finally translated into our fashion photography,
making our pictures different in that sense. In this sense I would consider it
more an evolution rather than a transition. IM: Andwhat would you say
is the fundamental difference between the two? Alex: In my opinion there
is a common basis to any kind of photography, which is the understanding of the
light, weather natural one or artificial one. Wildlife photography brings you
the beauty of the unknown and of the unpredictable, but as in portrait
photography you want to catch emotions. You just have to wait for them. Portrait
photography allows one to play with emotion, express feelings and get into the
soul of a person. And
emotions and feelings is what makes fashion photographs get alive.so everything is liked and builds up to the final goal of telling something in
the most natural way possible.
IM: Do you have any themes that you like to revisit in your
work? Alex: Not really. I have
experimented with nearly everything. Once you have the technique and
understand the light, I consider it enriching to experiment and
every time you try something different or new it is a whole new
experience from
which your work benefits.
IM: Do you have a favorite location where you like
shooting? Alex: Could not point out any
specific one. I thing every fashion shoot need its own location. As we
do a lot of street-style photography we always like to be as near to
the life as possible. In India for example early this
year we shot in Hauz Khas, Delhi for Spanish bag
brand and in Goa for a swimsuit brand.
IM: Have you ever done a shoot that you hated? Alex: lately not. Fortunately we
reached a point where we can choose the works we do. But in the past, when we started our photo agency and studio in
Barcelonawe
covered catwalk events where we had less than 2 minutes to shoot the anchor
international model for a specific fashion brands.
IM: do you feel that in recent years there have been
any major changes
in the art of photography? Alex: Probably people will hate me for saying this but I
think that
generally speaking internet has killed the need to understand the
technique of photography. Nowadays everyone with a digital camera
thinks he is a professional photographer, shoots wedding, makes
portraits, catalogues,
etc. No need to light accurately or to expose properly. While these pictures are
being used for facebook or on a low res website there seems to be no real need
of having a good technique. Problems happen once a client what’s to havea
print out or a poster and suddenly the fabric has no texture, the picture is
out of
focus, etc. Having said that, there a hundreds of amazing photographer out there
who are extremely talented and make astonishing pictures. In this sense
there has not been a change in the art of photography, as it’s unique to everyonehow
you catch a moment. Digital photography has just given us the chance to be much
more creative in this sense, at a lower cost. IM: If you could photograph any historical figure, who would
it be? Alex: Never thought about that. There
is so much beauty and so many moments
out there, there is no need to look back. IM: What advice would you give to photographers that
are just starting out? Alex: Understand the
principles of photography and of light. And then
practice, practice, practice.
